I've driven California's Highway 1 at least 20 times - in the Winter, in the Summer, and even in the Fall. I've driven it to get to Hearst Castle, to listen to Elephant Seals roar, to see the fog engulf a lighthouse, to look straight down at the crashing surf, and to enjoy the redwood trees of Big Sur. I've never driven it to see a waterfall. I didn't even know there was a waterfall waiting to be noticed!
Highway 1, by the way, is a pencil-thin roadway that curls along the coast from San Diego to Eureka. It's best curves are from Morro Bay to Carmel. My kids hate that stretch of road. They call it "barf alley."
This time I was driving more slowly, stopping whenever I noticed a swarm of rental cars jockeying for position in a too-small turnout. At one of those gatherings I spied a plot of empty dirt just wide enough for my rented Mustang. I left the cameras in the back seat and wandered over to count the number of strange languages I'd hear from tourists staring down at crashing waves.
There were five languages, but that's a different blog post.
Instead of a "cookie cutter" set of awesome crashing waves, the tourists were enraptured by the silver thread of a waterfall slipping into a turquoise ocean. I returned to the car for my hat, the cameras, and a tripod.
